Merciful Anna Liston: Prayers Of A Privateer (Book 1 Mooshu)
by wandsandblades
Summary: An orphan girl from Mooshu became one of the famous pirates in the Spiral Skyways


**Book 1 Mooshu**

**Fort Sweet Fort**

Hidden deep in the wooded countryside of Mooshu was Fort Yamato. Surrounded by a wall of giant evergreens, fragrant cherry blossom trees and crystal clear flowing streams, the impregnable fort was home to a young girl named Anna. She grew up under the protection of a wealthy, unmarried ninja pig, General Nunziyo Yamato. To Anna, the General was a loving and generous father she simply called Papa Nunziyo.

She loved helping her Papa put on his armor as he prepared for his "very important job". She liked tracing with her dainty fingers the words on his badge "To Serve and Protect." In the past, they were merely interesting patterns and letters stitched on a cloth, but as time went by, she grew more curious about what they meant.

"But Papa, who are the enemies?"

"Anna, it is not good for a child to ask such questions. Now go out into the grove, Tiger Lily needs her morning exercise." Nana Moo-nay interrupted the father-daughter gearing-up ritual.

As the general's sole caretaker of the estate, Nana Moo-nay, a hefty and assertive Mooshuan cow, devoted her life to keeping Anna's innocence, and curtailing her curious and inquisitive mind by keeping her busy with chores and activities around the grove.

"But Nana, I have not helped Papa put on his sword." Anna protested because it was her favorite part. She loved to bring the general's heavy yet well-balanced samurai sword and watch him elegantly sheathed it on his side.

"Off you go, Anna. You don't want Tiger Lily to get impatient, do you?" Nana Moo-nay commanded firmly.

Sometimes Anna thought Nana Moo-nay should be the one who left home to face "the enemies", for she was far fiercer than Papa Nunziyo. The estate was more fun and cheerful when Papa Nunziyo's voice and laughter echoed through the woods.

As the two adults watched Anna gallop away on her Bengal tiger, whom she named Tiger Lily, Nana Moo-nay shook her head with great concern.

"Anna is growing up and getting more curious everyday. I don't know if I can maintain her innocence any longer."

"The fighting season will be over soon, and I will be able to retire and look after Anna everyday of my life."

"I don't know General, but I don't think even your mighty sword can cut down the beast inside of her. She is not like us, she is huma…"

"Enough Moo-nay!" General Nunziyo interrupted. "She is my daughter. There is no beast living inside my little girl."

It has been known that the war in Mooshu was brought about by humans. The Mooshuan creatures: pigs, cows, bulls, yaks, goats, sheep, lambs, geese and cranes believed that every human being is born with a beast that turns him evil. And when a human being learns a skill or acquires power, he will surely use it for evil against all the creatures of the Spiral. Humans were even able to turn the peace-loving creatures of Mooshu against each other.

Thirteen years ago, General Nunziyo found a baby girl in a basket nestled among the lotus flowers in the Crimson Fields. He recognized her as a human infant, and hesitated picking her up. But when her big brown eyes looked deep into his soul, and smiled as sweetly as the cherry blossoms, he could only see the beauty and purity of her face. Surely, there could not be a beast hiding in such an innocent infant. So he took her home and hired Moo-nay, a nurse cow, to care for the infant while he was away at battle. General Nunziyo made Moo-nay take an oath not to tell anyone about Anna. The name "Anna" was stitched on the swaddling clothes she was wrapped in. So she would be Anna.

General Nunziyo, on the short days that he was home, filled Anna's days with games of sword-fighting, mount riding, and telling stories of the great battles of ancient heroes. She was extremely happy when one day her Papa Nunziyo brought home a sword tree from a mysterious place called Grizzleheim, and a Bengal tiger from the snowy mountains of Mooshu. She loved riding her very own mount, Tiger Lily, up and down the hilly terrain of the estate. Under the sword tree, she particularly enjoyed pretending to be a brave warrior just like the ones in Papa Nunziyo's war stories.

Moo-nay raised Anna with stern discipline, and filled her days with learning the skills of crafting, gardening and breeding krakens, who were "pesky and sneaky varmints" as Nana Moo-nay would call them. Anna did not like them particularly because they would sneak up behind her and zap her with their lightning strikes.

But Nana Moo-nay still hatched kraken eggs because they were valuable to her customers. Although she would not talk about who the "customers" were.

She got all "worked-up" every time Anna asked her questions about her weekly trip to the market.

It was during one of Nana Moo-nay's weekly market trips to Hametsu Village to deliver the garments they had crafted, that three young ninja pigs suddenly popped out from who knows where.

Anna fearlessly drew her sword and confronted them. "Stand back enemies! Or I will cut you into pieces!"

"We're not enemies! We are ninja pigs!" they squealed in chorus.

"How did you get here?" Anna, sensing that they were friendly, asked more with curiosity than with threat.

"We have the ability to pop in and pop out of the ground. We were supposed to pop up onto the Ancient Burial Ground but instead we ended up here." explained one of the pigs.

"Where are we anyway?" chimed the second pig.

"You're in my home. This is the estate of my father, General Nunziyo Yamato." Anna declared with pride.

"General Yamato has a daughter? How can that be? We know he's not married and you're not even a ninja p-…"

"C'mon guys, let's get out of here." The third pig urged the others nervously, and whispered, "We're in the General's scary fort." They heard how General Yamato ruthlessly rose from the ranks of ninja pig, and earned the highest position of a samurai general. Many deadly ninja pigs perished under his mighty samurai blade, and he would certainly cut them up, too, just like his odd-looking daughter threatened to do.

"Wait! Can I go with you?" Anna ignored the first pig's queries about the General. All she could think about was that she did not want to miss the adventure of seeing beyond the fortress of the lush evergreens.

"I can give you better swords than your old rusty ones. Here, you can pick from the sword tree."

As the three pigs scrambled to pick from the tree, the first pig examined his new sword with excitement and asked Anna, "Can you teleport?"

"What's that?" Anna asked embarrassed of her ignorance.

"So you haven't been out this fort?" asked the first pig.

"No. Well, uh, I'm a most precious gem, so my Papa Nunziyo protects and serves me by fighting enemies out there." Anna replied defensively.

"Well, most precious gem, if you can't teleport then you can stay served and protected here with your mighty sword tree and those pesky krakens."

"I have a mount, a Bengal tiger. She can ride faster than you can teleport to anywhere." Anna quickly suggested before the pigs change their minds about taking her with them.

"Wow a Bengal tiger! I've always wanted to ride on one." The third pig declared with excitement, who had already forgotten the sharp blade of General Yamato's samurai sword. "I vote for taking her with us." He hopped onto the tiger not minding the disagreeing looks of his older brothers.

Anna hopped on, too. "C'mon! Tiger Lily is strong enough to take all four of us." Anna watched with amazement how the three pigs mounted the tiger like Siamese acrobats – like the ones she saw on picture books Nana Moo-nay used to read to her.

At the sound of Anna's command the tiger sprinted obediently under the weight of the four youngsters.

"So where are we going?"

"The Ancient Burial Ground!"

"What are we doing there?"

"We are digging for marley bones!"

"Excellent!"

So every Sunday afternoon, while Nana Moo-nay was on her weekly market trip, Anna and her new friends would go exploring the villages beyond the bamboo forest.

Then one Sunday afternoon, she saw a creature that would forever change her life. It was a creature who did not look like a pig or a cow, but actually looked like her. Anna wanted to talk to her, but the ninja pigs beat her to it. When the ninja pigs ran to attack her, the girl waved what looked like a sparkling stick, and with it she summoned a giant hairy monster with horns, that pounced on all the three pigs. The pigs were all knocked out, and they disappeared into the ground.

"You killed my friends!" Anna screamed at the girl who appeared to be dancing happily in the middle of the road. She turned around to look at Anna with quizzical look.

"Oh I'm sorry. Did you also need the pigs for your quest?" The girl asked while putting things into her backpack. "Well, I need one more pig, so you're welcome to join me for the next one. There should be more of them up ahead."

"What?" Anna looked at her with disbelief. "You killed my friends." She screamed more loudly this time.

"Whoa, why are you so

upset?"

"You killed my friends!"

"What friends?"

"The ninja pigs! They are

my friends!

YOU…KILLED…THEM!"

The girl looked at Anna with a confused gaze then slowly burst into laughter, which made Anna even more mad.

"What's so funny? My friends are dead and you're laughing?"

"Wait, so you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Are you a noob?"

"What?"

"Aren't you a wizard?"

"A what?"

"A wizard like me."

"I don't…I'm not…What?"

"Look, you're not a pig like your friends. You're a girl just like me, so you must be a wizard."

"I'm a girl? What's a wizard?"

Anna was still in deep confusion, when out from the ground jumped one of her ninja pig friends and attacked the wizard girl again. With a swift motion, she waved her sparkling staff, and summoned a beautiful lady with the most alluring voice. Her enchanting song knocked the pig back to the ground and he disappeared into the earth.

"Okay, got the last one, I better head back to Jade Palace." The girl proudly started to leave.

"Hey, that last one is, WAS my friend and you killed him!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"Okay, okay, stop. Look, I did not _kill_ your friends. But I really must be going back to Jade Palace before your friends come back out and attack me again. Promise, they're not dead. You'll see. OK. GTG!" _POOF!_

Anna was still staring at the sparkly residue that the "wizard girl" left behind when the ninja pigs jumped out from the ground with their swords drawn high.

"Where is she? Where's that life wizard? We're going to get her this time." The ninja pigs yelled loudly in a wild chorus.

"She's gone. She said she's going back to Jade Palace. Wait, you guys are not dead?"

"No, we're not. We just got zapped down into the underground, and we don't like it! It's no fun down there because we can't move."

"You know about wizards?"

"Oh yeah, they come around here knocking us out for their silly quests."

"How come I don't know about them?"

The ninja pigs looked at each other, knowing that what they just told Anna could mean big trouble for all of them.

And they were right. The following Sunday when they came to Anna's house to invite her to play, she was no longer there.


End file.
